


Nostalgia

by DameMond



Category: Bravely Default (Video Game) & Related Fandoms
Genre: I fell in, M/M, nostalgia fic with changes of povs?, this is placed between and post demo, using a bit of canon info and own hcs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 10:08:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6234508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DameMond/pseuds/DameMond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Janne and Yew think of their old days... and what's to come next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nostalgia

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, this is a small gift I published for someone who's like a brother to me in tumblr, my dear @zenelstra, for his birthday, but I decided to expand it and improve it for both the readers here and, obviously, him.
> 
> This barely skims over their thoughts in Al-Khampis, but I still have to dive deeper and write more details about those old days. These small povs are... well, that, small and lighter than the ball fic, all condensed in one scene. Trying varieties. I will go for a more detailed one in the next one, though. Hope English didn't fail me this time either!
> 
> And last, to my friend, @zenelstra, I hope you enjoy this little rewrite as you did with the original back when you saw it.

Janne remembered meeting the weedy-looking kid with big blue eyes and short, slightly messed brown hair (not as messed as his own, that was physically impossible anywhere in Luxendarc). He had found out the kid was from the Geneolgia family, to boot. He was close to being the shortest and less fit out of everyone in his class, but still determined to prove his worth and reckless enough during fencing practices to make Janne narrow his own eyes. Even with the other kids mocking him due to his family name, the boy kept going as if nothing had happened.

Janne himself was a bit reckless, he had to admit, but at least not as the boy when he climbed up the Spire of Learning in Al-Khampis in the good old Test of Courage. And got stuck up there. 

He couldn’t leave him up there… could he?

After seeing his classmates were utterly-useless-goods-for-nothing-who-wouldn't-move-a-finger and the teachers were nowhere to be found at that hour of the night _,_  Janne began climbing with a sigh. When he reached the shaking ball clinging to the outside walls that was the boy, he saw how his eyes were slightly red… and he had wet marks down his cheeks.

_Oh, man._

“You okay there?”

A pause.

“Well, I’m as okay as a hanged man can be.”

Janne snickered at that. “You seem to need a hand.”

“… Please, if you wouldn’t mind… uh- Janne, right?”

Janne blinked a few times, kind of surprised he had remembered his name, but that wasn’t a place or a moment to **be** surprised. Maybe later. “Yeah, Janne… Janne Angard.”

“I’m-“

“Yew Geneolgia, yes, I know.” Janne tried to shrug the last name as quick as possible and extended his hand towards Yew. The kid just needed to step a bit aside and he’d help him climb down. The sooner they were done with it, the better-

“W-wait!”

“What?”

“… could you… get a bit closer?”

“Uh, sure, but why?”

“I’m… abitafraidofheights.”

He was-

“You’re what?! And you still climbed all this way up?!” Yew hung down his head in what seemed to be slight shame, his face heating up. “Why the hell did you do something that idiotic?!”

“It was a test of courage, okay?! I… wanted to prove… I wanted to show them I am not here only because of my name!”

Ah, pride and self-worth. Janne knew those quite well. With a sigh, he climbed a bit closer to Yew, who was clinging to the Spiral’s wall like a lifeline. Yew, for whatever impulsive reason and out of any logical reasoning of someone afraid of heights, looked down to realize that none of his classmates had stayed there to see his poorly executed (and finished) test. Maybe it was for the best.

He grabbed Janne’s hand and almost slipped down when moving closer, but an arm around his waist helped him cling to the wall again before two seconds of panic had passed, but now his legs were shaking badly.

“Aaack!”

“I gotcha kid, don’t worry.”

“O-okay, okayokayokay-“

But now Yew wasn’t moving, shaking and breathing heavily, clinging to the heavily carved walls of the Spiral of Learning.

A gulp and a glance at his wild-haired classmate. His voice was almost as shaky as his legs. “I-I’m scared…”

“Shouldn’t have climbed up in the first place.” Janne scolded, though he managed to keep a softer tone than his usual “outside” voice. “I’ll help you climb down, come on. One foot here."

Yew swallowed once more, but what else he could do? He needed to get down before any teachers spotted them on their night rounds, so he had to trust Janne yes or yes to get him down alive and, of course, in one piece.

Somehow, with Janne's tone and instructions, he felt more secure... and so, Yew climbed down, with Janne’s arm around his waist.

That was the first time Yew had realized Janne’s hands burnt on his skin, too.

However, whenever Janne retold the story to tease his friend, all Yew pointed out was how beautiful the view from the Spiral looked. Janne, surprisingly, always agreed before saying Yew had to pay him back from that time.

And the many others that came later.

 

* * *

 

Yew knew Janne was problematic in class, yet he was smart enough to pass with flying colours and laugh at the teachers while being a renown "fencing prodigy" among their school. The fiasco that had been their pharmacy class showed his mischievous side, as Janne dedicated himself to fire aspir compound liquids with the syringes at the other students when the teacher wasn’t looking. Yew would never, ever admit to him it had him laughing behind his book and he had to hide his face to avoid being caught snickering.

Despite that, he saw Janne as a role model to follow.

He never seemed to be scared of anything and so Yew found himself being drawn like a moth to a flame since the day he’d climbed up to help him. Yew did well hiding his joy whenever he got paired with Janne to do their night patrols around their weekly camp when they went to the desert, and both paired together on their own when they weren’t assigned any pairs. Yew felt more secure with him, out of all people…

He hated the desert in the night, yet Janne made them almost relaxing for him. Poor Yew got terrified of his own shadow, after all.

He would still remember the startled look in Janne’s face when a Giant Bat glided out of a nearby shadow, it was the only time Janne seemed close to being scared, and it had been nothing but a monster popping out of nowhere.

Miiight had made his night, though. At least now he had something to tease him back with.

 

* * *

 

Janne was usually quite straightforward with people and that included Yew himself; he wasn't off the hook despite growing to be his closest friend. Didn’t bother him much, though, for Janne seemed to like when Yew followed his trail of teasing to the point they ended calling each other names with a fake frown in front of people. He also used to be a bit loud, much to Yew’s shame, but it made him feel... livelier.

During nights at their dorm, it was a different story. On their first year they all had their own rooms, but on his second year studying fencing in Al-Khampis, Yew had asked Janne if he could move into his room with him, seeing the others were also finding partners around. Janne had nodded without saying anything. Regretted interally the moment he nodded, but strangely enough, that voice seemed to die down pretty quickly.

Janne was quieter in their room, indulging Yew about his little talks about their classmates, or the scare he had the other night when going to the bathroom due to the wind howling outside their dorm, or just… thoughts. Thoughts Yew hadn’t been able to tell anyone for a while.

Janne was a nice confidant.

 

* * *

 

Yew had to leave back home to Gathelatio when his father grew sick. Janne graduated and went off to kick bandits in the desert. Or so he said.

Yew felt sad, lonely... cold. His home was cold, too. Back to the big tables where he could barely see the faces of the people he shared the household with instead of a cantine, laughing with Janne and wondering what they could get to eat. Back to the lonely libraries on his own. Back to being _alone,_ with a sick father he felt indifferent to.

They didn't meet for a whole year, but they wrote to each other. Letters written at night; letters that made Yew smile whenever he recieved them and even a bigger smile as he sat on his desk, thinking of a reply with an excited smile and a rapid-beating heart. Janne, even from a distance, managed to make his life back at home lighter than it usually was.

It was after he could go back to Al-Khampis when his poor, sick father passed on, that Yew graduated and was named leader of the Three Cavaliers. Janne was there too, among a gentle-looking man with a warm smile and a fatherly-like aura. It filled him with joy.

Their routine and safety were gone, and now they had to go and face the world n their own. “Nothing less for the fencing prodigy”, Yew had said with a silly grin, to which Janne had replied “Yeah, sure. You also need someone to cling to when the ghosts come,” and he had earned a smack.

Yew was terrible when ghosts and heights. Janne knew that first hand. Or first arm, for it was what Yew clang to when he had to face either of those. How many nights of hearing legends of ghosts had he begged to sneak under the covers with him, just to feel a bit safer?

Janne had grown used to it by now. Even as a Cavalier, if Yew asked him if he could put his bed closer to feel safer in their tent, Janne knew he wouldn't say no.

Boy, wasn't he doomed.

_Just a few more months to go…_

* * *

Janne’s hand always burnt.

On his shoulder, on his back when pushing him, on his hair to pull a leaf off… Janne had protecting hands Yew longed for himself: to be able to protect... Yet, he was always receiving Janne’s protection from one way or the other, so Yew wasn’t sure of what he wanted himself.

To protect what? His home? Alfred took good care of him... Rifa in Al-Khampis? Yes, his old classmates, the school, the city... Hell, the world. He was member of the Crystalguard, it was his duty to protect-

Janne.

Funny where his brain went.

...He felt a strange tingling wherever Janne touched, too…

 

* * *

 

And now.

Now Yew stares at a flower and as his lips stop before even pronouncing a name, and Janne swallows before asking “who’s the lucky girl?” as customs go. The sight feels heavy and strange on him, but the rational part of his mind says _let go, you know what will happen_.

So he tries to let go, barely, as a big part of his mind seems to reach out the _bothersome idea_ desperately and he has to quiet it down. So Janne keeps teasing him on-

Until Yew starts crying, for some unknown reason. Janne stops and feels his throat close. He hadn't seen Yew cry since Al-Khampis. Shaking, yes. Shrieking, too. Everything involving fear and panicking. His stomach closes, too, and he doesn’t hesitate on following Nikolai away from there. Bad, really bad if he’s not able to take it… He needs to prepare himself, be ready for _what’s coming_ , or else Yew will be his end.

Yet it seems like the gods are against him, for at the inn they throw a sad-looking Yew at him and it hits him in the face worse than a troll fist, and he forgets all his will to keep a minimum distance. All thrown out of the window

Janne says nothing and leaves space in his bed for Yew to climb in. The flower he had in his hand before is on the window. For some strange reason, it bothers Janne to look at it.

“Hey, Yew?” Before he can even scold himself for prying in, he’s already opening his mouth. “Why were you crying before? What happened?”

“… I felt I someone had left… something strange, as if I tried to remember, but I couldn’t… It’s similar to what I felt when I had to move away from everyone in Al-Khampis when my father got sick.”

“Oh?”

Now he’s more interested and peeks at the tinier boy who’s curled up in a ball next to him. “Yeah… It’s just, weird… I feel empty for some reason.”

“Nostalgia? Y’know, we haven’t been in Al-Khampis for a long while, so maybe you got hit with memories.”

Yew shook his head. “No, it’s not that, I’m sure… But I do miss our old time here.”

“What do you miss the most?”

“Learning a lot every day.”

That gets a small smile out of Yew, but Janne scoffs at him. “Bo-ring.”

But Yew doesn’t bother to reply to his teasing and it bothers Janne even more. In the end, he pulls his arm and cups Yew’s face, running his thumb over his cheek.

Yew feels his cheek burn.

“… Whatever it was, it’ll be gone in a breath.”

“… my chest hurts, too.”

_Ow._

“Yew…”

“I just found myself with a flower out there and couldn’t remember a thing, yet…”

“Hey.”

Yew stopped talking.

“… Don’t cry anymore.”

“I don’t know why I-“

“Don’t.”

Anger boiling in Yew's veins because he _knows_ that, for Janne, being the strongest is easy, being the “nanny”, being the one coming to help him when he’s in need and for some reason, that fuels his anger more.

“It isn’t that easy!”

Janne blinks and realizes where he went wrong, where Yew understood him wrong, and takes his hand away. _Maybe it’s best to leave it like this,_ he thinks, _maybe it’s best if I don’t get involved._

 _But I’m already involved enough,_ another part of his mind says.

A bitter laugh escapes Janne's lips at the thought that the very moment he’d decided not to leave him up in the Spiral of Learning, was the moment he’d doomed himself to Yew Geneolgia.

“I… just hate it when you cry, that’s all.” Janne blinks. "It irritates me."

Janne thinks he dodged that one fast enough.

Yew blinks, anger fading from his face. He feels too tired, too comfortable and too warm for some reason, especially where Janne had touched. He sighs and grabs Janne’s hand, placing it on his cheek again, cupping it with his own. Janne doesn’t protest or pulls it away, and watches Yew close his eyes.

“… Why are you doing that?”

“Feels warmer.”

 _Innocent, too innocent_ , Janne thinks. _Too warm._

He’s already doomed to Yew Geneolgia.

_Just one month to go…_

_… I hope that, when you think of me, you remember this instead of what you’ll see of me._

**Author's Note:**

> I shouldn't be writing at 6AM... And now I want to write about the letters, too. Drat.


End file.
